


Unstuck

by PeroxidePirate



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-02
Updated: 2009-12-02
Packaged: 2017-10-04 02:26:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeroxidePirate/pseuds/PeroxidePirate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mid-S7, Spike gives Willow advice about girls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unstuck

**Author's Note:**

> Willow is one of my very favorite characters, and definitely the one I understand best, right up until "Once More with Feeling" in S6. After that... I kinda lost her. And although I have a lot of ideas about what could happen post-Chosen (some S8-compatible, some not), Willow barely shows up. So I'm trying to understand where she's going, as an adult, after losing Tara. I figured this is a good place to start.

  
  
  
**Entry tags:**|   
[btvs](http://peroxidepirate.livejournal.com/tag/btvs), [kennedy](http://peroxidepirate.livejournal.com/tag/kennedy), [season 7](http://peroxidepirate.livejournal.com/tag/season+7), [spike](http://peroxidepirate.livejournal.com/tag/spike), [willow](http://peroxidepirate.livejournal.com/tag/willow)  
  
---|---  
  
_**fic: Unstuck (Buffy, 1000 words, PG-13)**_  
**Title: **Unstuck  
**Rating: **PG-13  
**Fandom: **Buffy  
**Disclaimer:** These characters and their universe are not owned by me.  
**Characters:** Willow/Kennedy, Spike  
**Summary: **Mid-S7, Spike gives Willow advice about girls.

 

The girl who was taking high school math classes in seventh grade hasn't had much of a chance to feel old. But now that a dozen-odd potential slayers are crowded into the house that's become her home? Willow feels ancient. It's hard to believe there are only a few years between them.

Kennedy, the oldest one -- who has a superiority complex that truly befits a slayer -- is about nineteen, and the rest are still in high school. Or would be, if they weren't hiding out here.

The girls are definitely in charge. Which means that at certain times of the day, the entire upstairs of Buffy's house resembles a girls' locker room, and anyone who's uncomfortable with that had better stay the hell away.

So while Buffy and Giles go over a grocery list in the kitchen, and Xander and Andrew argue about some movie involving space travel, Willow wanders out to the back porch.

The door closes behind her, but it's not enough to drown out the sound of half a dozen shrieks from upstairs.

"Sounds like the inmates are running the asylum," Spike mutters, from the deepening dusk under the roof's overhang.

Willow peers at him. "Does it drive you completely crazy sometimes? Being around all those girls, and nothing but girls, day in and day out..."

Spike gives her a lecherous smirk. "Red? You sayin' you miss--"

"I'm saying, how do you even keep it in your pants?"

He laughs out loud. "Who's saying I do?"

"No one's saying you _don't,_ and I figure that means something." She shrugs. "And Buffy hasn't staked you..."

Spike heaves an unnecessary sigh. "Always comes back to her, doesn't it?"

And then Willow understands -- how he manages to keep himself in check, why he's even here at all. It's that tiny spark of hope, that maybe if he's careful and good, he'll get her back.

Grief washes over her again, like it keeps doing, as if it the past ten months were just the blink of an eye. There is no spark of hope for her. Tara's dead, and nothing can change that. Ever.

"What about you?" Spike asks, interrupting her self-pity. "I've seen the way that one bint looks at you-- what's her name, Kathryn? Karen?"

"Kennedy."

"Right. 'S cute enough. Not your soul-mate, I'd wager, but good for a roll in the hay."

"Spike!"

He shrugs. "That's what _she_ thinks of _you."_

"But she's so young..."

He crosses his arms and just _looks_ at her.

Oh. Right. He's older than Willow's great-grandparents. "And she's kind of obnoxious. And it's too soon. And--"

"And you're scared."

"I'm not scared! She's a pushy, self-centered, arrogant brat. She thinks she can have whatever she wants just because she's so darn cute when she asks for it."

Spike raises his eyebrows. "And you're scared."

"She flirts with me because I'm the only other girl here who even swings that way," Willow insists. "And then she takes it for granted that we're going to fall into each other's arms, just because she wants it that way. But if we were out in the real world, where we could meet people, instead of stuck in this house like we're preparing for war, it wouldn't take long for her to find somebody who's more her type -- and who, by the way, is actually interested."

"And you're scared."

"And I have other things to think about. I have protection spells to maintain, and alarm spells, and my friends to worry about. And, oh yeah, I'm pretty sure there's an apocalypse coming sometime soon. And I have to make sure I can deal with all this without going totally evil and trying to destroy the world like I did when my last girlfriend died." She takes a deep breath. "So yeah, when you put it that way, I'm scared."

He grins. "Feel better?"

"No!"

He uncrosses his arms, his expression softening a little. "Look, Will--"

"I'm not talking scared-of-commitment scared -- although there's that, too," Willow admits. "But the big one is, what if I really, really mess up, and we all die... because I can't, well, keep it in my pants?"

Spike looks away for a minute, but at least he doesn't offer false reassurances. Then he looks back, meeting her eyes. "What if you'd never even met Tara? Would you know enough magic -- and have enough control -- to help at all?"

Willow blinks a couple of times, considering. "I don't know."

Spike just nods, smoking a cigarette and looking out across the lawn.

Willow ponders that, gazing across the lawn with him. Losing Tara -- hurt. Still hurts. And what she tried to do was terrible. But... she learned from it, no question. She grew, and changed. She made some big mistakes -- but if that's the price of loving Tara, it was more than worth it.

Maybe she still has more to learn. More changing and growing to do.

The companionable silence lasts maybe a minute before an upstairs window slides open and a head appears, along with a chest and neck clad in a navy blue shirt.

"Willow!" Kennedy calls down.

Willow looks up and gives a little wave.

"Come up here!"

"Why?"

"Just come up here!"

"Why!?" Willow calls again, louder this time.

"I'm stuck!" Kennedy shouts. "In my shirt! See?" She turns her back to the window. Her top is an open-backed design with smooth, tanned skin showing between fluttering edges. The high neck tapers into a pair of long, wispy ties that are knotted together.

"Can't--" Willow begins, but Spike clamps a hand over her mouth.

"She's on her way!" Spike calls out. In Willow's ear, he whispers, "Group of girls this size, one or two have to be curious, anyway. Better hurry, before she does find someone else."

Willow looks up again. Kennedy's lithe form is still sillouetted in the window.

Willow grins. "Thanks," she whispers to Spike. She heads back into the house and makes her way upstairs.


End file.
